Personally I think you would be better off buying a used name brand scope. I have six of the omano scopes here at the school. Out of the six three of them are working OK. the other three I try to keep out of use because the optics just are not that good. The other three are as I said OK but only OK. They do not compare to the meiji I have here and the Zeiss on my bench makes them look like gum machine bobbles.
I can use the omano scopes but they are very figity and they give students fits. They are what they are, cheap knock offs of better quality scopes.
My advise is to look up the article Leonardo posted on here a while back about microscopes and find yourself a good name brand used scope like a Meiji or Olympus or B&L. You will have a much better scope in the end.
I am going to replace the onamos I have here with better scopes as funds allow.
my first was a used scienscope. a few months ago i got a used leica for a good price. the leica admittedly was a bit better optically than the scienscope. however, buying them both new, i don't feel the leicas' xtra price was worth the slight improvemrnt in optical quality. mechanically,both were just about equal.
I've had an Omano for about ten years and had not had any problems with mechanical or optical. Mine is the most expensive model bought on sale through the Microscope Store with the double shaft boom stand. Leicas (according to Leonardo's article) has mechanical short comings that concerned me. I have no regrets with my choice of scopes. Fred
One thing, take the list about buy/avoid scopes like a reference but the absolute true don't exist, i own two scopes from the Leonardo ( posted by ) list to avoid and are excellent scopes .